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5 Es
Creating Your Action Plan: The 5E’s for Safe Routes to School
A great way to kick off your local Safe Routes to School effort is to hold a public meeting to develop an action-plan based on the 5 E’s of Safe Routes to School. Sometimes the creation of a 5E’s plan happens after the community is energized through a special event such as Walk and Bike to School Day.
Evaluation
Long term Safe Routes to School programs generally start with a thorough evaluation of the situation at the school or for the school district. Surveys of parents help to reveal why parents are driving their children to school, and what changes might result in a shift in their behavior. Student surveys elicit the attitudes of the youth, and help to show how to craft a program that will be appealing to the younger generation.
It’s also important to know, before Safe Routes to School interventions begin, what percentages of students are walking, biking, taking the bus, being driven alone, and carpooling to school. Travel surveys including a record of the weather and time of year, should be taken throughout several days in September and May of each school year to gauge the affects of the program on commute behavior. Another important component of evaluation is reviewing “crash data” to map where the collisions are occurring.
Evaluation data is key to determining the scope and the success of a Safe Routes to School program. In addition, most funding that is provided to run programs requires methods for evaluation.
Engineering
Changes to the built environment through engineering improvements are a critical component of Safe Routes to School. The most successful programs begin with a thorough community assessment of the barriers for children walking and bicycling to school.
Safe Routes to School programs often organize “Walk-a-bouts” so that parents can join city engineers and police officers in walking the routes to school and identifying everyday problems that children encounter, including complaints such as: it’s impossible to cross the street, the sidewalk ends, there is no bike trail, the cars go too fast, etc. “Walk-a-bouts” can also identify opportunities such as short-cuts and preferred routes that children could take to schools.
Through a community-wide approach to engineering, a wish list of capital improvements can be generated and separated into two categories: short-term improvements and long-term improvements. Short-term improvements such as landscaping maintenance, altering the timing of traffic lights, painting crosswalks, or installing stop signs are immediate fixes which can be done on a small budget within a short time frame, often through the use of a city’s general funds. Long-term needs such as installing sidewalks, pathways, bridges, and reconstructing intersections should be prioritized as part of the capital improvement plan for the city.
Education
A focus on education is always an important component for programs that seek to alter cultural norms. As Safe Routes to School is a multi-disciplinary in nature, there are vast opportunities for educational outreach.
Many U.S. programs offer bicycle and pedestrian safety training in the classroom and “in the field” (through obstacle courses set up on school black-tops) to teach children the basics associated with walking and bicycling with traffic. Young elementary school children (6-8 years old) are taught skills such as how to cross the street, not to dart in front of cars, and how to look for cars when walking past driveways. When children reach the fourth and fifth grades (8-10 years old), they are often taught the basics of bicycling, including balancing, signaling, following traffic rules, and how to properly wear a helmet. Police officers can be brought into schools to instruct children what to do when approached by a stranger, and many police officers will also help with traffic safety training.
Through educational programs, parents are asked to follow the rules of the road when they are driving, walking and bicycling, and they are encouraged to practice walking and bicycling with their children, as traffic safety is learned behavior that can only be acquired through hands-on experiences. Driver safety campaigns can extend to high school students and to the entire community, so that everyone becomes aware of the fact that children are walking and bicycling and that sharing the road can be a matter of life or death.
Encouragement
Families are busy and it’s often hard to make a change in daily routines; however, many parents are willing to let their children participate in special events such as a “Walk and Bike to School Day”. Special events are one form of encouragement program and provide a way for families to break their routines and try something new. When a majority of the school participates in a special event, it can create a snapshot of what life could look like if every day was a “Walk and Bike to School Day.”
Contests, which can foster individual and classroom competition, also help to get kids out of cars and onto feet and bikes. Some schools run contests such as the “Frequent Rider Miles Program” where kids track how they come to school and receive points for “pollution free” miles. Other contests such as Walk and Bike Across America encourage classrooms to track the overall number of miles the children have covered by walking and bicycling, and then to plot the distances consecutively on a map. The exercise results in a math lesson, and can become a history lesson as student can virtually “visit” the locations on the map that they visit.
Special events and contests have been proven effective in inspiring students, parents, elected officials, and school leaders to try something new, which often results in the development of ongoing programs to encourage walking and bicycling. Other successful encouragement programs facilitate ways for parents to walk and bicycle with groups of children who live together in a neighborhood. Through the formation of “walking school buses” and a “bike trains,” parents can take turns transporting groups of children, ensuring a supervised commute and creating strong community cooperation.
Enforcement
The fifth E, enforcement, is also vitally important for creating safe routes for children. Enforcement programs can combine partnerships with law enforcement along with community programs, such as stationing crossing guards at busy street corners to help children cross the street.
Enforcement programs target unsafe driving behaviors, such as speeding. In a British study, the risk of pedestrian deaths from collisions with automobiles rose from five percent at 20 miles per hour to 45 percent at 30 miles per hour, to 85 percent at 40 miles per hour.
Police presence can also serve to reinforce safe bicycling and walking behaviors with students. A child who is stopped by a police officer for not wearing a helmet or for riding through a red light can learn a valuable lesson through a conversation or warning from a law enforcement officer. The presence of more “eyes on the street” helps make everyone feel safer, and drivers and cyclists alike are on their best behavior when a police officer is parked in front of a school.
Additional Resources
The single best resource for getting started locally is the Safe Routes to School Toolkit published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. We encourage you to review this how-to guidebook, which includes surveys, check lists, sample press releases, resolutions of support, fact sheets, curriculum, success stories, statistics, and more.
Download our Safe Routes to School PowerPoint presentation (5MB) that you can use or modify for local use.
Many resources and an on-line guide are also available through the National Center for Safe Routes to School.
For more resources, please see our Helpful Links.
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